In the House in the Dark of the Woods

by Laird Hunt

"Once upon a time there was and there wasn't a woman who went to the woods."
In this horror story set in colonial New England, a law-abiding Puritan woman goes missing. Or perhaps she has fled or abandoned her family. Or perhaps she's been kidnapped, and set loose to wander in the dense woods of the north. Alone and possibly lost, she meets another woman in the forest. Then "Once upon a time there was and there wasn't a woman who went to the woods."
In this horror story set in colonial ...

In the House in the Dark of the Woods Reviews

JohnOct 30, 2018

Inspired take on the traditional witches in the woods story. There is a lot going on in this fairly shot novel about a Goodwife (goody) who finds herself on the other side of reality. The first half of the novel is full of unexplained happenings and frustrating wandering, but Hunt mana...

CindyDec 23, 2018

Someone please explain to me what I just read. I?m confused. I was able to follow the first 50+ pages then got lost in the mumble jumble. Time to move on. ...

Jessica SullivanOct 23, 2018

Update: I want to clarify that this book is definitely objectively better than 1 Star. But I still hold that my experience of reading it was so disappointing that I?m sticking to this low rating.
***
I have no idea what I just read. Obscure fiction works for me sometimes, but ...

MaciekDec 30, 2018

told my man I was off to pick berries and that he should watch our son for I would be gone some good while. So away I went with a basket.
What drove me to read this book was the blurb from Brian Evenson, an author I admire, who described it as "wonderful, luminous and sly", and call...

Alyson HagyJan 18, 2019

Strange and inventive. Perhaps not a tale for all readers since it upsets (and undermines) our expectations about linearity and suspense at almost every turn. But I found myself drawn in by Hunt's fictional world and how it presents itself as both old (Hawthorne, the Romantics, fairly ...

Bill HsuNov 10, 2018

One of my favorites of 2018 so far. The leisurely fairy-tale narrative keeps slipping. Questions are posed and shrugged off. Like in this delicious exchange:
"Once upon a time there was and there wasn't a woman who went to the woods... Now why did she go?"
"Why did she go?"
"Why did...

Diane S ☔Oct 15, 2018

Will. Leave this unrated as I will not finish after 50%. Have no idea what is going on and find I don't care enough to continue. For a while I was intrigued by the strangeness, but then it just became tiresome. ...

Caleb MastersJul 03, 2018

A wonderfully spooky, dreamlike treasure of a book. Positively dripping with atmosphere, Hunt's novel tells the seemingly simply story of a women getting lost in the woods in colonial New England. But the novel quickly becomes anything but ordinary, filled with fantastical images, beau...

JandayMar 24, 2018

I'm developing a bit of a habit of reading books about witches and primeval woodland magic. In the vein of traditional, heavily symbolic folk tales about the sonorant evil that lives in the deep forest, this story is about the unstoppable transformations that happen to women when they ...

Audra (ouija.doodle.reads)Oct 26, 2018

Reading a Laird Hunt novel is always an immersive experience. His writing is something that latches on and doesn't let go easily, so if you're sitting down with one of his books, you might just consider your afternoon and evening booked.
Though I think there is definitely a clear na...

SarahOct 21, 2018

This is a horror story that begins with a walk in the woods, set during colonial American times. It is a dark story populated with women with untoward motivations toward our main character, who is referred to as Goody. The plot is interesting, but suffers from the convoluted sentence s...

Neville LongbottomDec 29, 2018

This confused me. A lot.
I thought it was beautifully written and had such a cool, creepy atmospheric setting? but I don?t know if I fully understand what happened in the story. Or really what the central message was.
I guess maybe give it a try if you want some beautiful wr...

KCOct 31, 2018

A truly atmospheric tale of a young Puritan woman who finds herself lost in the woods, desperately trying to get home to her son and husband. While stumbling within the dark forest she soon encounters two strange and possibly menacing women and although little happens within the pages ...

CarolOct 23, 2018

Strange read....confusing narrative....difficult to find a focal point or become interested in a character or direction of plot. Almost called it quits a couple of times. Gave it my all though re-reading pages and chapters bc of enticing book summary depicting witchcraft in colonial Ne...

ChaitraOct 22, 2018

It was slight, and as such it was not a bad reading experience. It took me a while to cotton on to where it was going. But even when I did, I didn't fully get the point. It's eerie and atmospheric, but ultimately too vague to be satisfying. ...

SpencerJan 17, 2019

This book is a hallucinatory fairytale that follows a colonial woman lost in a strange forest in which dwells even stranger inhabitants. The prose is beautifully written and adds wonder to an atmosphere heavy with confusion and tension. This book isn?t for everyone as I imagine some ...

JamieDec 31, 2018

? Read this review and more like it on The Last Page ?
Overwhelmingly atmospheric, In the House in the Dark of the Woods is a modern masterpiece that swept me up and stole my heart. The story is told with luscious prose and has a fairy tale like feel, but instead of centering on...

LauraDec 03, 2018

This was a strange, twisted little tale that had a deliciously dark ending. The story was lyrical and strange, very vague until the very end when suddenly you realize that nothing was quite as it seemed and Goody was nowhere near as good or innocent as you think and then come to see ho...

SarahNov 04, 2018

2.5 stars. This book is written in surreal, dream-like, lyrical prose. If you like that, and if you like fairy tales, you will probably love this book. But for me, that kind of narrative is like seeing a story unfold behind frosted glass. It's just not my thing, and I prefer a more con...

Alisa H. (worldswithinpages)Aug 20, 2018

Felt a bit disorganized and rambling which made it hard to follow. The idea behind the story was promising, but the execution was a bit lackluster.
Thank you to Little Brown for the free copy and a chance to review! ...

Molly RiportellaOct 15, 2018

A mother?s errand turns dark and mystical in Hunt?s newest take on witches in Colonial New England. A bright-eyed Goody walks into the woods to gather berries for her husband and young son when the air turns dark. Soon our nameless protagonist is lost, and encounters a magnetic Cap...

Carrie NelsonDec 06, 2018

DNF. I really wanted to love this book but found it boring and confusing. About 50% of the way through I gave up. ...

Jessica (jessreadsalatte)Sep 27, 2018

*I was sent an Advance Readers Copy by Hatchette Book Group in exchange for an honest review*
4 Stars
I actually quite enjoyed this one.
I?m seeing a lot of reviews saying the writing wasn?t really their type, but for me, I enjoyed the writing a lot. It felt poet almost, ...

HannaMay 28, 2018

Oh the beautiful cover, the ever-present feeling of dread, and magic derived from nature. This book was an adventure into the world of the women in the Dark of the woods. How did they get here? Why are they here? Or better yet, what have they done to get here? A story of redemption, or...

Wolf OstheerenJan 24, 2019

This book is very much like a delirious, feverish dream. It is strange, it is confusing, but it still makes so much sense in it's own way. I love what the author has woven from the old fairy tales, bringing them together in "why have I never thought of that before??" kind of ways. Also...

BELLETRISTDec 10, 2018

We read this one in two sittings. It's quite unlike many things we've read before. It is definitely not for the faint of heart or stomach. It is also somehow remnant of witch tales we grew up with. That's what we really loved about it. It's spooky, but also curious. ...

ErinNov 02, 2018

I hated this book. Incomprehensible gibberish. ...

Lark BenobiDec 20, 2018

Using traditional fairy tale elements, Hunt tells a story that starts with fairy-tale calm and rapidly descends into madness and horror.
The novel strongly recalls the work of the great German Romantics, in a way I never would have guessed a modern author could evoke. One of my fav...

Raven RossOct 23, 2018

This darkly entrancing novel was perfect for the Halloween season! The women are powerful and violent, but not lacking complexity in the least. The scenes are sooo creepy and enjoyable as fuuuuck. Go read it, because this literary journey leaves no regrets (well, for the readers at lea...

Jee Hooked On BookzOct 12, 2018

Riveting! Devoured this in 2 days.
You?d first meet a woman nicknamed ?Goody? who would then meet Captain Jane, Eliza and Granny Someone, all of whom were witches, although one of them will claim she was not, and that she was in the woods to save lost souls, another fed on child...

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About the author

Laird Hunt

Laird Hunt is an American writer, translator and academic.

Hunt grew up in Singapore, San Francisco, The Hague, and London before moving to his grandmother's farm in rural Indiana, where he attended Clinton Central High School. He earned a B.A. from Indiana University and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. He also studied French literature at the Sorbonne. Hunt worked in the press office at the United Nations while writing his first novel. He is currently a professor in the Creative Writing program at University of Denver. Hunt lives with his wife, the poet Eleni Sikelianos, in Boulder, Colorado.